Xbox Could Compensate $ 7.5 Billion of Bethesda Purchase Without Putting Games on PlayStation
One of the biggest questions that arose after Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda was whether the studio’s future games would be released on PlayStation platforms. Keeping Fallout 5 or The Elder Scrolls 6 away from Sony consoles means lots of lost game sales, but it can also have a huge impact on Microsoft’s larger plans: if you love Bethesda’s open-world RPGs, and they’re just Xbox’s. If available, it will likely be a factor when it comes time to decide where to spend your money.
In an interview with Kotaku, Xbox boss Phil Spencer did not say that Microsoft will make special products for future Bethesda game consoles on Xbox, but he stressed that it can. When asked if the company could make up the $ 7.5 billion it spent buying on PlayStation consoles without selling Elder Scrolls 6, Spencer answered yes.
Spencer said, “I don’t want to worry about that. This agreement was not made to take games away from another player base like that. Nowhere in the documents, we have gathered is how we can prevent other players from playing these games. We want more people to play games but when I think about where people will play and the number of devices we have, and we have xCloud, PC, Game Pass and our console base, I don’t need to ship these games on any other platform other than the platforms we support for the deal to work for us. Whatever that means.”
Spencer previously said that Microsoft will fulfill existing agreements for PS5 versions, but beyond that it will determine which games will be brought to which hardware on a case-by-case basis. And as Kotaku points out, this doesn’t even have to be an all or nothing proposition. For example, while Microsoft released The Elder Scrolls 6 as a full-priced retail game on PlayStation it is also available on Xbox Game Pass, and that would still be great leverage.
Much of the interview focuses on Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox One S and X consoles, but Spencer also said there are no new updates on the state of the Halo Infinite, which was delayed in August, leaving open the possibility of its campaign and its multiplayer components. “It’s something to think about and we want to make sure we’re doing it right.”
